As compared to slot or video type games, traditional table games oftentimes offer greater excitement for some players, group play, and often attract big money players, which can result in larger profit margins for the casino. In a table game environment, however, it is often difficult to track how much money a player wagers, and thus it is likewise difficult to accurately provide complimentary gifts or reward good customers to encourage a return to a particular property. Prior gaming tables use gaming tokens or chips embedded with RFID to track a player's betting for this purpose.
These prior gaming tables with RFID gaming chips are pervasively used in casino and gaming rooms for table games such as blackjack, poker, baccarat, craps and roulette. Particularly, these tables are provided with a RFID system including at least one RFID antenna for tracking and reading the gaming chips used during the play of a table game. These gaming tables further include low frequency and high frequency RFID chips, low and high frequency RFID readers, table layouts, playing cards, dice, gaming furniture, roulette wheels, table accessories, and other products that are used for casino table games.
As described in related U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/032,211, even with these prior art bet tracking techniques, numerous wagering aspects may be missed or unmonitored, as discussed below. With the growing use of electronic technology for chip verification and tracking, on-table shufflers and bill validators, today's gaming tables require more electronic equipment, devices, and wirings to be installed in them. As such, these electrical devices and wirings may interfere with the RFID antenna, causing malfunctions in the RFID tracking system. Further, the electrical devices and wirings emit heat inside the base of the table, such that the performance of the electronic equipment and RF signals and receivers can be affected.
Accordingly, one drawback to these prior art systems is that existing RFID-type systems may not be able to accurately track every token due to interference caused by electronic equipment and wirings, particularly when numerous tokens are stacked. In addition, these prior art systems may suffer from inter-antenna interferences if RFID antennas are spaced too closely together for games that have multiple and independent betting options per player seat, such as, for example, the game of baccarat. As a result, table layouts require sufficient spacing between antennas, which in turn may prevent use of a desired felt layout or prevent offering of the desired game.
Still further, there is a recognized need in the gaming industry to provide a gaming customer with ever-changing gaming experience in order for the gaming operator to remain current, provide a variety of gaming options, etc. This may include new games, new game and table layouts, special gaming events, tournaments, VIP tables, or the like. Any disruption in gaming operations, however, can be cause for concern as gaming operators are oftentimes hesitant to bring gaming tables off-line, and when doing so typically requires compliance with gaming regulation standards. For instance, there is a continued need in the gaming industry to provide, for example, multiple table games which can be played alternately at a specially constructed gaming table known as a “multi-game table” while remaining gaming regulation compliant.
Thus, there is a need for a gaming table designed and built to accommodate the electronic and/or mechanical equipment that is increasingly provided on gaming tables, and yet provide the operator the ability to conveniently provide a new and/or changed gaming experience with little or no disruption to gaming operations as desired. As such, the tables described herein may ultimately provide for a gaming table configured to allow for a secured, minimally disruptive, quick-change of the table top, and yet still provide for ventilation and cooling of electronic equipment, elimination of any degradation in performance of the RF signals and electronic equipment, and still allow for specially-built areas for a shuffler and a bill validator that are ergonomically placed for dealer convenience and comfort while preventing any possible cheating.